I've been spending my online time today looking at stuff about the Legion of Superheroes. You know, in preparation for starting to read about them again.
And of course I've been reading some about the history of the title.
I wasn't around when they made their first appearance. And I only read them very occasionally in the sixties (seeing as how the sixties were over before I was nine). But during the seventies, I became quite a fan.
And I remember when the team got their new costumes. The Cockrum-designed ones. When Saturn Girl went from a tunic and tights to a pink swimsuit, when Element Lad changed his suit from pink to green, when Phantom Girl put on the bell-bottomed jumpsuit with strategically-placed cutouts. In general, the new outfits were brighter and/or showed more skin than the old ones.
And I was reading today about the change, folks looking back, saying that many of the women's new outfits were problematic--that Saturn Girl's new suit was uncharacteristically revealing, Princess Projectra's not particularly dignified (the neckline basically dipped to her navel and was held together with lacing). And I can kind of see all that now (certainly the outfits they put on Night Girl and Laurel Kent would have been gravitationally challenging).
But at the time, as a kid, I just thought they were pretty and futuristic. The minidresses, tunics and tights seemed so old-fashioned. The hair-dos did't help--I remember being convinced that Light Lass must have been much, much older than her brother because of her hair (which reminded me a bit of Miss Kitty on Gunsmoke). The new outfits came with new hairstyles, for both male and female Legionnaires (Timber Wolf, anyone?). And to me, everyone just looked so much more modern--so much more as if they could have existed in the future. Any era's depiction of future times seems to be built off of some extreme contemporary fashion (Saturn Girl's Farrah hair was a good example of this!)--and the original Legion costumes, to 1970s kids, just looked dated.
Now, of course, the old tunic-and-tights look is charmingly retro. Even Phantom Girl's flares are probably in that category. As for Imra's pink swimsuit? Maybe not so much.
